We are soon halfway in on our Zero Emission Marine (ZEM) project and the project has reached full speed. On 31 October it was time to stop for a while to reflect on the last year as our ZEM Annual Seminar was arranged in Turku in collaboration with Meyer Turku´s NeCOLEAP project.
“Both ZEM and NeCOLEAP are maritime Veturi projects, and this year we wanted to organise our annual seminar together with NecOLEAP to get all possible synergies out of the collaboration and attract as many players as possible from the Finnish maritime cluster,” says Kenneth Widell, ZEM Project Lead.
Cruise 2050 – how do we prepare for the unexpected?
The seminar programme consisted of updates from both ZEM and NeCOLEAP, and the highlight of the day was the Cruise 2050 panel discussion. The panellists were Anssi Lappalainen from Royal Caribbean Cruises, Jukka Paananen from Wärtsilä, Marjo Keiramo from Meyer Turku, and Leena Jokinen from Turku University. It was hosted by Tapani Mylly from Turku Business Region.
One of the topics discussed was what passengers will look for in 2050. “I would start with imagining what vacations will look like in the future. It´s hard to say, but sustainability and responsibility will for sure be topics of interest”said Marjo Keiramo from Meyer Turku. Anssi Lappalainen from Royal Caribbean commented, that he sees the future from two sides: providing fun technology to their guests, and the environmental awareness that passengers have. Jukka Paananen from Wärtsilä continued the topic of sustainability and emphasised, that the future will entail sustainable fuels.
“I believe that in 2050 passengers won’t hear or notice where the energy comes from. The emissions will not be visible to the external eye,” he said.
The big question throughout the discussion was how to prepare for the future and the unexpected.
“Considering the industry, the year 2050 is not that far away. But the future is very hard to predict, future studies are about different options and possibilities. Companies need to be ready for quick changes and have options for different situations. Your adaptability will need to be strong because the future will always surprise us,” Leena Jokinen from Turku University said.
New connections and igniting ideas
A big and important part of the event was networking and discussion. The programme gave possibilities for active discussion several times during the day. “The seminar was very successful in that sense that people were actively discussing and networking together in between the presentations,” Kenneth said.
All in all, the Annual Seminar attracted over 120 participants from different companies, organisations and academia. The event was a collaboration between Zero Emission Marine, NEcOLEAP and Turku Business Region.
